Now more than ever, we need a break — an occasional respite from our everyday lives. Yes, a "daycation" — a day spent away from the office or job site, and away from chores, just to relax and play. Once again this summer, we are taking one day a week to suggest a nearby escape. Enjoy!

Bubble cloud at 9 o'clock," says the modulated voice over the boat's intercom, and all of us passengers — elderly, middle-aged and two busloads of middle-school students from Chappaqua, N.Y. — scamper to the port side of the 110-foot vessel.

Ahab chased one, Jonah was swallowed by something akin to one, and here we are with no literary or Biblical pretensions. We simply hope to see a whale — and perhaps snap a photo.

We have a whole day off, we've scraped together gas money, and so we are daycationing in Plymouth, Mass., a historic town that sprang up when the Pilgrims set foot on that famous rock, which is now, by dent of nearly four centuries of souvenir hunters, far smaller than it was back then.

On land, the town drips with history — the living museum Plimouth Plantation, and a replica of the Mayflower. Majestic town markers include the National Monument to the Forefathers, an 81-foot-tall granite female figure named Faith, as well as a harbor statue to Massasoit, a Wampanoag leader responsible for a peace treaty with the Pilgrims that lasted until his death in the 1660s.

But today, we head seaward for Stellwagen Bank, a nearly 19-mile glacial deposit beneath the bay waters. The bank is part of a marine sanctuary, and it's a popular place to watch for whales.

Our skipper is Tom O'Reilly, a local lobsterman who pilots the whale-watching boat a few days a week. The naturalist aboard is a woman appropriately nicknamed Krill, for whale food. Growing up in Buffalo, Carol Carson loved whales. Her parents gave her the nickname, not knowing she would one day narrate whale-watching cruises.

Some things to know:

Baleen whales — a group to which humpbacks and North Atlantic right whales belong — do not have teeth. They filter food — mostly microscopic bits — through plates in their mouths. To feed, humpbacks blow bubbles, which act as a net through which the whale swims to gather the ton or so of food it needs each day.

Hence, a bubble cloud lit green by the sun means a whale could be ascending to the surface.

After the bubbles, there sometimes is a spurt of water expelled through the whale's blow hole, then a dorsal fin. And then the lucky whale-watcher may see the quintessential shot of the humpback whale's tail, the 18-foot wide fluke, the T-shaped mark of a leviathan of the deep.

The truly lucky whale-watcher might see a humpback breach — leap into the air and land with a slap, displacing water as only a 40-ton object can. They are water acrobats.

So have your cameras ready.

On our roughly four-hour trip, Carson gives a short safety speech, then shows a DVD inside the large cabin that describes what we hope to see. (Captain John Boat — the ship's owner — guarantees whale-sightings, or you get a free trip.) Around the Plymouth area, the more common whales include right, minke and humpbacks.

A Wide Berth

Most humpback whales seem oblivious to watercraft, which must stay at least 100 feet clear of them, according to guidelines from the National Marine and Fisheries Service, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits harassing the animals, and specifically protects right whales, which command a 500-yard berth as they're extremely endangered, according to the Whale Center of New England in Gloucester, Mass.

Carson says the season, which started in April, has been great so far; Her informational talk is interrupted about an hour into our 90-minute cruise to the feeding grounds, when the skipper slows the boat. Off to the left, a group of fast-moving Atlantic white-sided dolphins slice through the waves. We oogle and aim cameras. (And later? Most of us will check our digital cameras to see shot after shot of blue waves, sans quick-moving dolphins.)

The dolphins shoot past, and the engines are restarted, only to be cut again because we are surrounded by humpbacks cresting the water — though not breaching. There is one named Aswan by whale watchers, and another named Trident, both marked by distinctive fins. Each whale cruise includes naturalists and marine biologists like Krill who take pictures and track specific whales. Off in the distance, the Dolphin VIII, another whale-watching boat — chugs over from Provincetown.

Birds signal the whales' arrival as they take off from the surface to make room. The whales — there are 10 or 15 of them — seem to move in slow motion as they surface and then slide back into the dark water. There is no breaching, but it doesn't matter. The whales are beautiful. There is no other word.

With a sister in Chicago and kids in California, I'm always on the lookout for airfare savings. I check for cheap flights on Priceline.com and Travelocity.com and get price drop alerts on my favorite routes from AirfareWatchDog.com, BookingBuddy.com and Yapta.com.

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